


The End

by ElizabethWilde



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-09
Updated: 2008-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethWilde/pseuds/ElizabethWilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto knows the end is coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

Ianto knows the end is coming.

He keeps himself in good shape. Still looks sharp in a suit. It isn’t entirely a physical thing, and he accepts that. He knows he will wake up one morning to find Jack gone. Not  
gone from Torchwood, most likely, but not lying in bed next to him. He will be gone, and he won’t come back.

He knows it will hurt.

It will be strange being simply another bloke at the office again. Even as age took him from the field back to the desk, to buzzing about the office and making coffee, Ianto loved his work. He won’t leave Torchwood even if Jack stays too. They both know that.

That will hurt too.

Every time he rises from his chair and feels the twinge in his knees, the moment draws closer. It isn’t only about the sex. That’s still good if not so acrobatic as it once was.  
In any case, Jack has outside interests. Ianto understands. Jack grew up in a different place with a different set of rules. Sex isn’t love, and he understands that. Ianto admits to  
himself that it hurts sometimes, especially as he ages and Jack’s other lovers never seem to.

But he understands.

Jack won’t leave because they’re no longer compatible or because they don’t care for one another. Always they have shied carefully away from the word Love even if it  
describes things best. Jack will leave because he can’t stay that close. He can’t watch Ianto die from so intimate a vantage point, can’t watch him slipping closer and closer to the inevitable edge of mortality. He will distance himself. Ianto can feel him pulling away already, but he hasn’t made the choice to leave altogether. He will soon.

The end is coming, and Ianto understands.


End file.
